Monroe Anderson

In Search of Intelligence in the Multiverse--Not in the muddled mind of Alan Keyes

When it comes to the rabid right, perennial loser Alan Keyes comes off effortlessly as the big dog.

I witnessed him spouting his coo-coonalities while foaming at the mouth on a regular basis back in 2004 when Illinois Republicans, for want of ANYBODY to put up a pretend challenge to State Sen. Barack Obama for the U.S. senate seat, recruited Keyes from Maryland.

I immediately saw it as a cynical move by the state Republicans to pit their Black against the Black Democratic candidate, reasoning that one African-American was as good as the next. I would later come to that same conclusion when the Republican National Committee would con Sen. John McCain into partnering with Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, figuring since the Democrats failed to put Hillary Clinton on the Obama ticket, their woman candidate was as good as the junior senator from New York would have been.

Both gambits proved to be the undoing of the Repubs. 

Obama went on to become the second Black U.S. senator from Illinois within a decade. Oh yeah, and with a big hand from the lipstick-wearing Pitbull, he's now the POTUS.

As Obama's challenger for the U.S. senate seat, carpetbagger Keyes came off as whacked out on peyote-laced Jesus juice. Keyes accused Obama's position on abortion as the "slaveholder's position." Keyes asserted that Obama's Lord and Savior wouldn't even vote for the Democrat. Before it was over, Keyes had throughly embarassed the Illinois Republicans, exposing how dim-witted their decision to draft Keyes had been. And when it was over, Keyes lost to Obama, 27 to 70 percent.

Now, he's back at it. In a video that surfaced yesterday, Keyes calls President Obama "a radical communist" and said he refused to acknowledge the validity of Obama's inauguration because the President is not a U.S. citizen. You've got to hear him to believe him before coming to the conclusion I came to long ago: Alan Keyes is all babble and all psycho too.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

A holiday to memorialize the Confederacy? WTF?

In an era that some are trying to bill at post-racial, South Carolina state senator Robert Ford is seeking to take us way back to the post-Reconstruction epoch. Ford, who is of African American descent, is trying to get a bill passed that requires South Carolina to give workers a paid day off for Confederate Memorial Day.

This gives a whole new context to the term House Negro.

In a senate bill that won initial approval last week in a subcommittee, Ford wants to force South Carolina county and municipal governments to give workers a paid holiday off on May 10 to honor Confederate war dead. Mississippi and Alabama already celebrate a Confederate Memorial Day.

In a Rodney King-like "can't we all get along" spirit, years ago Ford pushed a bill that would make Dr. King's birthday and a dead Rebels day separate but equal holidays.

"Every municipality and every citizen of South Carolina, should be, well, forced to respect these two days and learn what they can about those two particular parts of our history," Ford said last week.

I already know way too much about the Confederacy part of that history. 

A little more than a year ago, I was in South Carolina covering Barack Obama's presidential election. The State House lobby features the Orders of Secession engraved in marble, portraits of Confederate generals look down on state legislators in their chambers and the Confederate flag still flies outside.

No one has convinced far too many of the state's white citizens that the Civil War was lost and that the descendants of freed slaves are now their equals. And I am anything but convinced that a holiday honoring the soldiers who died to keep the state's blacks enslaved will help old times be soon forgotten.

But I do suspect that Ford is trying to convince a bunch of the state's white citizens that he's a good Negro. Just last month, the senator pushed a bill that would outlaw dirty words in his state, making it a felony with a penalty of up to five years behind bars for using the F-word, among others. First Amendment be damned!

It was just a year ago, remember, when Democrat Ford backed Sen. Hillary Clinton, for the Democratic presidential nomination over Obama, because every "Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose because [Obama's] black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything." 

Lawdy, Lawdy. Guess who just announced that he's running for governor of South Carolina? Do you think that in a post-racial era, President Barack Obama should endorse gubernatorial candidate Robert Ford--just because he's a fellow African American?

(This post has also been published on Huffingtonpost.com and Newsvine.)

Blagojevich's ploy reveals Obama's seat is black

A chance meeting between a dull kitchen knife and my left hand as I prepared Christmas dinner turned into blood at first sight. So, I'm just now healed enough to be able to type with both hands. In other words, this is a lame excuse on why I haven't posted in three weeks. 

But now, I'm back. Here's a column I wrote for Ebonyjet.com about Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris to Barack Obama's vacated senate seat. The selection may be as much about jury selection as it is about good governance.

Here's what I had to say.

Mr. Burris Goes To Washington


The appointment of Roland Burris to Obama's Senate seat is anything but a simple plan


January 6, 2009 


By Monroe Anderson

I missed the exact moment when Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate post became a blacks only seat.  No one sent me an email declaring it was ours. Nor did anyone hit up my cell or Facebook page. I didn't even get a tweet.

But, apparently, the seat that once belonged to the president-elect now commands exclusive dibs from black pols in Illinois, period.  No whites need apply. Asians or Hispanics shouldn't bother either.Rep. Bobby Rush said as much. During Gov. Rod Blagojevich's news conference last week announcing the appointment of Roland Burris to Obama's vacated seat, the Illinois congressman from Chicago emerged from the press pool to commandeer the mike. "Let me remind you that there presently is no African American in the Senate," Rush said, talking through the media to address state and national Democrats. "I would ask you not to hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer."And while the appointer kept asserting during the news conference that it was all about the appointee, I didn't quite buy it.I believe that it's about Burris as the black appointee as much as it is about the red herring to be introduced at the governor's jury trial.  Blagojevich hasn't been indicted yet, but the big money is betting that he will be come spring.  Anticipating the inevitable, the governor has hired Ed Genson, the high-priced super lawyer who got R. Kelly off, as his defense attorney.When the trial begins, the Burris appointment—if it plays out badly with the Democrats over the next couple of days—may play well in Blagojevich's defense. Think O.J.  If the Senate Dems have a fit, denying the one seat vacated by an African American to be filled by another, then any blacks on the jury may be sympathetic enough to the governor to vote to acquit him—striking another symbolic blow against institutional American racism.I know it sounds a little far-fetched but so does the idea that a governor would try to sell the U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder.  But it also sounds far-fetched that in 21st-century America, blacks have no representation in the U.S. Senate, while there are 13 Jewish Americans, three Hispanics and two Asians.  It is also outlandish that in this time of change, Democratic leaders would ignore the law to play politics.Illinois State Democrats are in a mad rush to impeach their defiant governor and U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald is working overtime to indict him, but so far Blagojevich has not been proven guilty of anything but having a filthy mouth.  That means the governor is lawfully empowered to appoint Burris, who is untouched by any hint of corruption and unquestionably qualified to perform the duties of the post.Thirty years ago, Burris became state comptroller, the first black Democrat elected to statewide office in Illinois. After three terms in that office, he was elected the Illinois attorney general.  Since then, he's become a lovable loser. He has run three times for governor, and one time each for mayor and U.S. senator, each time coming up empty handed.That's why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Dems are doing so much hand wringing.  Although he denies it, Reid has been reported as saying he did not want the seat to go to Representatives Jesse Jackson Jr., Danny Davis or state Senate President Emil Jones because he believes that none of the three black men could win the statewide election in 2010.If the Democrats insist on taking a bad situation and making it worse, it may be a moot point. Secretary of State Jesse White, the highest-ranking black official in Illinois right now, has refused to certify the Burris appointment.  The Democrats in the U.S. Senate insist that they won't seat Burris when he arrives at the chambers today.They may want to rethink that.  Rep. Rush, a former minister of the Black Panthers who is now a Baptist minister, Sunday night called the Senate "one of the last bastions of plantation and racial politics in America," then warned that the Senate Democrats who fight Burris' appointment are "going to ask for forgiveness" from the black American voter.Hmmmm. Come to think about it, that seat may need to be black after all.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Check out his blog at monroeanderson.typepad.com  

Blagojevich's gold-plated greed

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has outstripped Sarah Palin as the nation's most laughable governor. Comedians see his absurd reported antics as pure gold. As with Gov. Palin, they don't even have to rework his words to get a rash of chuckles. So far, for comedians, political pundits and politicians alike, the only challenge Blago is presenting is whether to play him as stupid or crazy or both.

Christopher Rabb's Afro-netizen, one of the oldest black blogs around, is now contributing the running joke known as Illinois' governor. In its latest post, it claims to have FBI tapes of Blago wanting to cash in on the Barack Obama in more ways than just the vacant senate seat.

According to the blog, it a transcript of Blagojevich expressing his interests in muscling in on the Obama memorabilia craze by becoming the Victory Plate czar. Here's Rabb's full post, complete with the as-seen-on-TV Victory Plate YouTube video and what his blog claims is the FBI transcript of yet another Blago plot. I'm not sure if this is serious or a joke but, either way, it's definitely amusing.

FBI confirms Blagojevich sought 'Victory Plate Czar' cabinet post in Obama administration

An anonymous source has leaked to Afro-Netizen information from the FBI sting on embattled Illinois governor, Rod R. Blagojevich (D) that confirms the recently arrested governor sought to become Obama's "Victory Plate Czar", a position Blagojevich believed could be the dark-horse position in the incoming administration to revitalize the national economy currently mired in a historic recession.

Transcripts obtained by Afro-Netizen reveal that Blagojevich believed that in exchange for appointing whomever President-Elect Obama wanted for his vacated senate seat, the governor could secure what he was confident would be the most coveted Executive Branch position outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

According to a transcript of an exchange between Blagojevich and an unnamed advisor, the governor was caught exclaiming:

"This f@#ing black guy s#its gold bullion! And you're telling me he's not getting a f@#$ing taste?! Well, that's b@llsh*t. And if it's not, I'm definitely getting a f@*ing taste for sure. Those shut-ins, old f@#^ers, the blacks and f@#$in' hippies are all buyin' that commemorative sh@t like f@#*ing crazy. We get some of our boys to take over that Victory Plate biz, run it through some new b*llsh#t federal program, and nobody'll even know what's goin' on. Besides, Obama and those f#$*ers on Capitol Hill will be greeting us as liberators, throwing f@&#in' flowers at our feet when we f@#*in' save the Godd@mn economy with this f#$@in' plate stimulus idea! Now, back to rubbin' my feet, f#$*er -- and get out of the way of the TV. I'm tryin' to watch 'The Honeymooners' without your big f@#$in' melon in the way!"

When reached for comment on this unsuccessful scheme, Telebrands founder and infomercial king, AJ Khubani, whose company markets the Obama "victory plates" stated, "That's the most stupid f@*#in' idea I've ever heard. And trust me, if there's anyone who knows about stupid f@#*in' ideas, it's me."

Okay, it's a put-on.

Gov. Blago must go-go

   

     Now we know that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is candidate #5 in the Gov. Rod Blagojevich alleged scheme to sell Barack Obama's vacant U.S. senate seat.  The congressman says he is not a suspect and that he made no play to pay. We'll all know what's went down soon enough. Meanwhile, Rep. Jackson says the governor must go. So does President-elect Obama and that's the sentiment of scores of Illinois pols. Here's my observation on my state's golden governor. It was posted this morning on the ebonyjet.com website.

Blagojevich: The Sixth Sense
now it all adds up
December 10, 2008
By Monroe Anderson

In the wake of the arrest of Governor Rod Blagojevich, what has unfolded in Illinois is not unlike the surprise wrap-up in The Sixth Sense: Once the movie ended, everything that had gone before fell into place.
   
As late as November 9, CNN was reporting Barack Obama wanted his close friend Valerie Jarrett appointed to his senate seat.  It's easy to see why.  Jarrett is a wired-Chicago attorney and businesswoman who is one of Michelle and Barack's closest friends. As the co-chair of the transition team, she was the President-elect's first important African American appointment.

But Jarrett's selection to fill his senate seat was not Obama's to make. By Illinois law, it's the governor's decision and his alone.  And by November 11, it was, at best, questionable whether she was Blagojevich's candidate of choice. According to the transcript of a Federal wiretapped conversation between the governor and his chief of staff, John Harris, Blagojevich acknowledged that he knew that Obama wanted Jarrett for the senate seat but "they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. F*** them."
   
The next day, Jarrett announced that she was not interested in the senate seat and three days later, Obama announced that she would be a senior White House adviser and assistant for intergovernmental relations.
   
There were a number of other in-retrospect-moments before that.

For the past four years, a double-digit number of associates of the governor have been indicted and convicted and for the past two years, rumors that he was under Federal investigation have been running rampant.  One of Blagojevich's pals was Tony Rezko, the political fundraiser. If the name sounds familiar it's because it was first cited by Hillary Clinton, and later by John McCain and Sarah Palin, to muddy up Obama.

In June, Rezko was convicted of fraud, attempted bribery and money laundering. During his criminal trial, prosecutor's focused on Rezko's corrupting influence on the governor's administration; Obama's name was tangentially mentioned. Sentencing for Rezko was put off from October 28 until January 6, ripe with speculation that he was cutting a deal to give up the gov.

The Obama camp had long ago given up on Blagojevich, keeping him at arm's length to assure that he didn't put their candidate in harm's way. The Illinois governor was not invited to a unity meeting of Democratic Party governors in June in his hometown at the Chicago Historical Museum.
   
Blagojevich was the only Democratic governor who did not speak in July in Denver at the Democratic National Convention. The Illinois governor was also missing-in-action at Obama's victory rally last month in Chicago's Grant Park.
   
Following Blagojevich's early morning bust, Patrick Fitzgerald, United States attorney general for the Northern District of Illinois, held a news conference to put it all in 20-20 hindsight.
   
Describing it as a "political corruption crime spree," Fitzgerald detailed the charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery that led to the arrest of Blagojevich and Harris.  The alleged selling of Obama's vacant senate seat for a promise from a yet unnamed candidate of raising a million dollars in campaign funding will certainly have more political fallout.  Among other competitive contenders for Obama's U.S. senate seat are U.S. representatives Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis and Luis Gutierrez. Obama's political mentor, Emil Jones, the retiring president of the Illinois state senate, has also expressed an interest in replacing Obama in the nation's upper house.
   
Fitzgerald said that Blagojevich had threatened to not provide state assistance in the selling of the Cubs and Wrigley Field, which is owned by the Tribune Company, unless the owners replaced the newspaper's editorial board members with journalists who would write nice things about him as the governor. Blagojevich also allegedly sought kickbacks in campaign contributions in exchange for an $8 million in state funding for Chicago Memorial Children's Hospital.
   
There's more yet to come.  Fitzgerald is appealing to those who know of other transgressions by the governor to come forward.  All they have to say is "I see corrupt people."

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Check out his blog at monroeanderson.typepad.com

Understand this first: Obama is the last one

    When Barack Obama becomes the first President of the United States, African American history will not only be turning a new page or be in need of a new chapter--we'll have to write and read volumes of new books. Here's my personal observation of one way we'll have to reshape our perspective. It's my latest ebonyjet.com post.

I was the first black reporter at the National Observer. 

In the eight years it had been around before I arrived immediately after graduating from Indiana University, the weekly Dow Jones publication was a whites only destination.  Its managing editor let it be known that he was not about to hire anyone black for his newspaper. He had turned down, I was told, a young Bob Teague, who went on to be an award-winning NBC network reporter, and a young William Raspberry, who went on to become the Washington Post’s best-known black columnist.

Months before I was all set to slip on my cap and gown, the conservative ME got his gold watch. His retirement was followed by this pledge from the Observer’s younger editors: they would hire the first qualified black journalist that applied. About that time my resume—highlighting my Newsweek Magazine internship in the summer of 1968—arrived in the mail.

I was with the D.C.-based Observer just shy of two years and during my brief stint, it was just me. There were no other blacks. No other black reporters. No black secretaries. No black pressmen. No black janitors. No black anybody but me. In 1972, I left for Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, in truth, not because I was black but because I was too green for the job.

After a couple of years of being mentored and challenged at Ebony Magazine, I went to the Chicago Tribune. When Harold Washington became Chicago’s mayor on April 29, 1983, I became the first black reporter to cover City Hall for the Chicago Tribune; make that the first black reporter from any mainstream media newspaper to cover Chicago’s City Hall and city council. The one thing I brought away from both my Observer and Tribune experiences is that it’s not easy being the first black.

At the Observer, I felt as if I had the weight of the race on my shoulders and that any mistake I made would have negative ramifications far beyond me, setting back any opportunity for any other black reporter that might try to follow me. At City Hall, I was the man in the middle of a racial council war as black aldermen were outgunned and outnumbered by white aldermen who were dead set on torpedoing the political agenda of Chicago’s first black mayor. I was second fiddle to an eight-year younger David Axelrod, who had been named the Trib’s political editor and who, more recently, as chief political strategist, brilliantly helped carry Obama to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It’s not going to be easy for America’s first black president. But that is so obvious and the reasons are so many that a brief discussion couldn’t begin to address them, right now.

It wasn’t easy for Jackie Robinson either. The name-calling and taunts from the baseball fans and the hostilities from the players are history. Since Robinson became the first black major league baseball player 61 years ago, there has been a long and steady stream of first blacks. There was the first black country and western recording star 42 years ago, the first black NFL quarterback 40 years ago, the first black astronaut 29 years ago, the first black Radio City Rockette 20 years ago, the first black governor 18 years ago, and the first black CEO of a Fortune 500 company seven years ago. And, of course, there’s Oprah Winfrey and Tiger Woods.

No doubt, there will be other Jackie Robinsons, in other fields and professions in America. Someday, there will be the first black executive editor of the New York Times or Washington Post. Someday there will be the first Black baseball commissioner. Someday we’ll see the first head of a major movie studio and the first black owner of a major TV network.

But, while any and all of these future black first accomplishments will be important and welcomed when they finally arrive, what Barack Obama has pulled off dwarfs them all—past, present and future.

He may not have run as the black candidate for president but he is, in reality, symbolically and metaphorically, no less than that. So when he is sworn in as POTUS on January 20, he will officially—and forever—be America’s last first black.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Check out his blog at monroeanderson.typepad.com

(Illustration by Kyle F. Anderson)

Except for the voting and the celebration, it's all over

     

     This is the historical day we've been anxiously awaiting. If you haven't voted yet, read my post then go do it. I'd suggest that you vote early and often but, apparently, that's only legal in Chicago. 

     Here's my ebonyjet.com commentary and have I got a prognostication for you. It was posted on the website this morning.

A Simple Prediction
a bold proclamation on Election Day 
November 4, 2008 

By Monroe Anderson

At the risk of ending up with egg on my face and having to eat crow come tomorrow morning, allow me to go out on a limb and make this prediction: This time, it won't be close.  Barack Obama's margin of victory is going to be so wide that the GOP won't be able to steal the election.

To make myself perfectly clear, can you spell l-a-n-d-s-l-i-d-e?

That's what I see coming and that's what the Republicans no less deserve.

In one national opinion poll after the next, from last week to last night, Obama has enjoyed somewhere between a double-digit to a high single-digit lead over John McCain. The O-Man also had an edge in six of the eight battleground states.

The advantage to Team Obama doesn't stop there.  More than 153 million Americans, a record, have registered to vote with about 10 percent being newbies most anxious for a change. You've seen, maybe even waited in, those long lines of early voters in state after state, night after night, as seen on TV. Nearly a third of the Americans registered to vote have already been there and done that, giving Obama a 20 percent advantage even before the polls opened this morning.

But McCain and the gang would like to have you believe that all the polls are wrong; that the Mavericks have better than a chance of drawing an inside straight for ending up with the winning hand. "They may not know it, but the Mac is back," McCain has taken to boasting in his final-hour rallies.

Believe not what they say, but what they don't do.  The Republicans have not been campaigning in Obama country because they've been working overtime in defending their own turf. Since the credit crisis hit and the stock market did a belly flop, McCain and Sarah Palin have been forced to campaign in the states that George Bush owned in 2000 and 2004.

But eight years of Bush have proven to be eight years too many.  After lying about the weapons of mass destruction, mishandling the New Orleans rescue after Hurricane Katrina and driving America to the poor house, the president has thoroughly ruined the Republican brand.

There are scores of other reasons why any politician with an R at the front of his party's name is wearing a scarlet letter.  But, I'll just tick off three color-coded terror alerts for McPalin and the rest of the GOP.

*Black pride. The enthusiasm among African American voters alone may help turn some red states blue. In North Carolina, for instance, half of the state's registered African American voters have already cast their ballots.

*Brown anger. The incessant rants against illegal immigration by the rabid right's pet radio hosts, Rush Limbaugh, Lara Inghram et al have infuriated Americans of Mexican descent—seventy-five percent of their votes will be cast for the black man.

*White fear. The hockey mom from nowhere may have ginned up McCain's presidential prospects in early September, but by late October Gov. Palin was a total drag on the ticket. Once she'd been exposed as the pitbull who was all bark with no intellectual bite, true blue white American patriots shuddered at the thought of her possibly having her hand on the nuclear trigger.

That's why I'm predicting an Obama blowout--with one not-so-minor caveat: For those of you who haven't voted yet, it's up to you. If you don't go out to vote and encourage all your family members and friends to do the same, by Wednesday you'll find me plunging off the end of a broken limb, gagging on a nasty breakfast of raw egg and cold crow.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. 

     And, before you go, take a look at this hilarious YouTube video, Hockey Moms Against Sarah Palin, which is just one more bit of evidence as to why the Republicans won't rule this day. (h/t to An Average American Patriot)

For GOP, scary is as scary does

 
    Pity the poor right. The party faithful's fear and smear machine that has worked in the past--quicker than you could say Swift boating or Willie Horton--just doesn’t possess that same old white magic.
    Right wing-imagined Bogey men Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers ain’t scarin’ ‘em this Halloween season. Nor are those old, tried but untrue Republican boos about higher taxes and big government. Bald-faced lying doesn’t even work—Did you hear the ones about the Michelle Obama tape where she speaks ill of whitey or that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. was born in a village in Kenya, not the good ol’ USA?
    It must be frustrating. For the longest the Right has had a bulging bag of dirty tricks and a mountain of mud it summoned at will to muck things up.
    This time, it’s not working.

  "All of a sudden, the economy was on life-support and the Republicans were still prescribing that we take two aspirins and a tax cut for the rich."

    Obama just isn't as scary as they believe he should be.
    The Democrat is cleaning McPalin’s clock in Red states that should readily be in the taken-for-granted column.  In Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the Democrat enjoys a commanding lead in the polls. In Florida and North Carolina, he and John McCain are tied. Even bloody red Indiana is in play.
    This time, real-world fears got in the way of the Right’s manufactured ones: The housing crisis, the credit collapse and the plunging stock market.
    All of a sudden, the economy was on life-support and the Republicans were still prescribing that we take two aspirins and a tax cut for the rich. Why worry about what might be, when you’re trying to survive what is?
    Spooky tales about Obama raising your capitol gains tax just aren’t the same when you’re staring at your portfolio and seeing equities that have lost all their gains.  Screaming “welfare” sounds dumb when you’re worried about how well you and your family are faring. Crying wolf has no bite once you realized that it’s the foxes in the hen house who have ruined the day. Or that George W. Bush is our national gremlin. 
    That’s why the Republicans are running scared. Paper-tiger warnings and scary tales of yore sound like off-key whistling in the graveyard while the Repo man and the sheriff with an eviction notice are both banging on your door.  And then there’s Sarah Palin—the thought of her sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office is the most frightening thing of all.

 (If the photo-shopped pix of Obama as a tattooed gang member didn't scare you enough, perhaps this viral YouTube video of Obama as Hitler will. BOO!)

(This post, minus the YouTube video, is also on Huffingtonpost.com.)

With Rep. Jefferson, third time's a curse

   

     The Democratic U.S. congressman from New Orleans, William J. Jefferson,  turned a silk purse into a sow’s ear.  The first black congressman from Louisiana since Reconstruction, a Harvard Law graduate, had the world on a string. And in many instances, it could be argued, he served his congressional district well.
    But, then again, he did not.

    When Hurricane Katrina struck, the congressman found it more pressing to commandeer the National Guard so they could help him remove some precious items from his home while some of his constituents were sitting on their roofs tops begging to be rescued.
    There was also that little incident where the Feds found $90,000 in marked bills in Jefferson’s freezer in his D.C. home.
    The New Orleans politician faces a run-off for his congressional seat on Nov. 4. On that day, Louisiana voters ought to make sure that they send Barack Obama to the White House and Rep. Jefferson to the retirement home.

     The congressman had his chance and blew it. Wayne Hicks at the Electronic Village agrees. Here’s some of what he had to say about the Louisiana congressman:

Rep. William Jefferson .... Please, Just Go Away!

Do you believe that things come in threes? If so, perhaps there is still hope that New Orleans congressman William Jefferson will fade from sight soon. First, Kwame Kilpatrick was forced from his position as mayor of Detroit. Second, OJ Simpson was forced from his position as a sports icon.

Perhaps U.S. Rep. William Jefferson will be #3 on this list. Jefferson, seeking his 10th term in Congress, faces a December trial on charges that he took bribes, laundered money and misused his congressional office for business dealings in Africa.

Of course, the people of New Orleans can end his career on November 4 when his congressional district holds a runoff. Jefferson was the first Black elected to Congress from Louisiana since Reconstruction. But, it is time for him to go away. Since he won't retire, it is up to the people to put him away.

OJ Simpson had false hope before he was found guilty by Las Vegas jury. Perhaps Jefferson is a wee bit too confident. He addressed a few dozen family members and supporters at a restaurant in a section of eastern New Orleans still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina. “We look forward to a rigorous campaign but a successful outcome,” Jefferson said.

A victory in the Nov. 4 runoff would send Jefferson to a Dec. 6 general election in the heavily Democratic district against a little-known Republican.

     Read the rest of the Electronic Village post here.

      And, this is what I had to say about Jefferson in my Chicago Sun-Times op-page column more than a year a ago.

Rep. Jefferson a Bad Actor

Chicago Sun-Times

January 21, 2007
BY MONROE ANDERSON

 

 

I'd bet my bottom dollar that William Jennings Jefferson's folks taught him what all perceptive parents taught their black baby boomer children about the secret of succeeding in the racially challenged U.S. of A.: ''You've got to be twice as good as the white man.''

Somewhere along the line, the 60-year-old Harvard Law graduate forgot his upbringing.

U.S. Rep. Jefferson was arraigned Friday in federal court on charges of racketeering, money-laundering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In total, the Louisiana Democrat racked up 16 violations of federal law and if convicted, he could face 235 years in federal prison.

A politically potent, well-connected African-American man taking a criminal legal hit that big, unquestionably failed to do something right. Jefferson, who has been fairly mum publicly about the case but has maintained his innocence, is either bad at appearing to be a good public servant or has acted badly as charged.

The congressman's got some powerful proof to overcome. The feds have successfully flipped two co-conspirators and established a solid paper trail for good measure. Last year, Brett Pfeffer, a former congressional aide, admitted soliciting bribes on Jefferson's behalf and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Another Jefferson associate, Vernon Jackson, the former chief executive of the telecom firm iGate Inc., was sentenced to 87 months in prison for paying $400,000 to a company controlled by Jefferson's wife in hopes of landing contracts from the U.S. Army and a number of African nations. Both Pfeffer and Jackson agreed to cooperate in the case against Jefferson.

From all appearances, Jefferson has been caught red-handed -- on video and by wire as well as live and in living color. Federal investigators say they videotaped the congressman on July 30, 2005, receiving a briefcase containing $100,000 from an FBI informant. A few days later, the FBI executed search warrants to examine Jefferson's homes and car, seizing a number of items, including $90,000 in marked bills stuffed in a home freezer.

Cold cash aside, I'm painfully aware that one of the great American pastimes is locking up black men. Our nation boasts the world record, with more than 1 million African-American men in prison and jail. That's more than all the black men in all the prisons and all the jails in all the other countries on the planet combined. Our imprisoned black men, as a rule, are uneducated, poor and powerless. Jefferson is none of that. Ideally, as a duly elected national lawmaker and leader, you'd think he'd be about setting a good example.

Jefferson, whose 2nd District includes New Orleans, won reelection in a runoff last year partly because of Louisiana's legendary quirky politics and partly because Mayor C. Ray Nagin and other prominent black politicians endorsed him. In 1990, he became the first black member of Congress from that state since Reconstruction.

Last week, Jefferson garnered a similar but more dubious distinction: He is the first U.S. official to face charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. nationals and corporations from corrupting foreign officials.

One of the foreign officials allegedly was Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who recently resigned. Just how good do you have to be to corrupt a Nigerian official? Only Russian palms are less difficult to grease.

This is not the first time Jefferson has received bad press. He was criticized in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Five days after the hurricane made landfall, Jefferson commandeered a National Guard detachment to recover personal property from his home. When the truck that was chauffeuring him to his home got stuck, Jefferson called on more Guardsmen, a helicopter and a second truck to help him out as untold numbers of his constituents sat on the rooftops begging to be rescued.

While it's easy to harbor bad suspicions, I imagine the good congressman was simply checking on his laundry.

That One won the town hall debate

        

(New York Times photo by Stephen Crowley)

 

     So I’m looking at my savaged, decimated stock portfolio, fearing that I might have to come out of my early semi-retirement to find a job at the very moment when they’re being out-sourced or disappeared before my very eyes, as I hear the McCain campaign tell us that Barack Obama once hung out with Bill Ayers and worshiped with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
      Uh huh. That and $65 will fill up the gas tank in my seven-year old Honda Accord.
     Rather than old, unrelated news, I want to hear specific, concrete plans on how my financial ship will be steered back on course to Treasure Island. 

     I know Obama has a clue. I doubt that John McCain does.
    That’s why I couldn’t wait to watch the second round of the presidential debates. I wanted to see to if McCain was man enough to step to Obama with some in-your-face mud slinging or would he wimp out and pretend that he cared more about Main Street than Wall Street.
    I saw enough at the town hall meeting.
    For one shining moment, the Maverick showed up in Nashville. Right off the bat, he announced that as president he’d have his secretary of state “buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America” and have the banks renegotiate their jacked up rates.

    Once he got that off his chest, McCain rested on the tattered and tired conservative  clichés he’s been spouting ever since he steered the Straight Talk Express off the information highway to bounce along the bumpy back roads in Bush Country.
     McCain insisted on keeping taxes low, particularly for the fat cats. McCain evoked the right-wing idol,  Ronald Reagan’s name--as if that were some sort of white magic that would get us out of the mess eight years of W. misrule have put us in. McCain got stuck on spieling about how he supported the Surge and Obama had not. The Arizona senator also threw out the flag-waving slogans his peeps love to hear but refuse to give any serious thought.
     Never mind that the stock market has plunged 5,000 points this year, “Our best days are ahead of us.” And, never mind that we invaded Iraq—which had no Weapons of Mass Destruction and nothing to do with 9/11—leaving tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens dead and the nation in ruin.  “America is the greatest force for good in the history of the World.”
       And, my friends, McCain knows how to nail Osama bin Laden, lead us back to the promised land of good and plenty, win the occupation in Iraq and the Bush-botched war in Afghanistan—he’s just keeping it a secret until he’s sworn in as POTUS.
     The Republican candidate also knows what to do about making sure Americans have health coverage. Unfortunately for both us and him, his explanation of his insurance plan sounded like Palin's explanation of her readiness to move into the Oval Office—confused, bemused, befuddled, muddled.
      Meanwhile, Obama spoke to middle class frustration and anger with plain talk while sounding and looking presidential, which bottom-lined in “that one”--as McCain chose to condescendingly call him--winning the debate hands down.
    But tomorrow is another day for the right to play.
    With the polls giving Obama the win in both presidential debates and an ever-increasing lead in the national opinion polls, can we count on the McCain campaign to ignore our financial pain and return to the politics of personal destruction, pumped out by the right-wing fear and smear machine?
    You betcha!

You can find this one and others I've posted on EbonyJet.com. Also, you can watch the entire town hall presidential debate on the MSNBC video below.